SEGA-Sammy changes half-year forecast due to poor game sales


SEGA-Sammy has changed their financial forecast, stating that they will make less revenue, yet make more profits.

SEGA-Sammy has changed their forecast  due to recent software titles not selling as well as expected. But they reduced the cost of operation from their pachinko machine business, thus they will return profit instead of losses.

SEGA-Sammy orginally posted that they expected to make $2.15 billion in revenue, now they changed it to $1.96 billion. Revenue isn’t Profit. SEGA orginally forecasted that they will lose $39.11 million, now changed it to a profit of $26.08 million.

[Thanks: TheREALTupac]
[Source: Gamasutra]

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40 responses to “SEGA-Sammy changes half-year forecast due to poor game sales

  1. GrantX360 says:

    With the Olympic games, Generations and very good DLC (Sonic CD, Guardian Heroes, Space Channel 5 etc.) the next 1/4 should be better from SEGA from a games perspective. But the overall future isnt good. Sega needs a global big hitter alongside Sonic or a big digital release. Rehashes and retro releases wont do. They have missed so many opportunities. Shenmue on XBL, new HD versions of games like Baku Baku, Columns on the iPhone. I like their digital vision with VF5 & Daytona coming to XBL/PSN. Lets hope they do well.

  2. Aki-at says:

    The future for SEGA is actually very good, finanically speaking. After those games, they will have Aliens and Binary Domain being released too so in terms of profits, they should do well.

  3. -nSega54- says:

    Binary Domain won’t do well, Sega West is being very hesitant to embrace and promote the game and it’s going to result in (yet again) another Japanese title developed for a worldwide audience being let down by its Western publisher.

    Does the average gamer outside of this site know about Binary Domain? Highly doubtful. Sega needs to change that. That’s the problem with a lot of Japanese publishers in general, I feel. They’re afraid to spend massive amounts of money to promote Japanese-developed games in the West because they fear the game won’t be a success and they’ll lose that money. Problem is, taking risks like that is necessary for a game, especially a new IP, to break out in the market. It’s hard enough to launch a new IP, it’s even harder to launch one that the public knows nothing about.

  4. Aki-at says:

    @Shadowloegend

    SEGA only started advertising Sonic Generations late last month, there was little to any marketing before then, and that game and series is much bigger than Binary Domain. Mario & Sonic 3 at the Olympic Games adverts have not even begun, they don’t start months prior to the game releasing, no company does that.

    Aliens Colonel Marines comes out only a month later and will be the bigger title, where is the marketing for that? This was after the very successful and very well marketed Aliens vs Predator. Binary Domain will more than likely be promoted closer towards time, to start marketing now would be a waste of money.

  5. unknown says:

    GrantX360
    i not sure about the new olympics but everything else is thumbs up

  6. -nSega54- says:

    Aki; I’m not talking about TV spots but we only got REAL gameplay trailers starting at like….TGS.

    Simply showing TV spots for a game that hasn’t been properly hyped up will not sell it. They need to be getting the Western Press excited about the game. So far, they’ve done a great job of keeping it a secret.

  7. Aki-at says:

    “Aki; I’m not talking about TV spots but we only got REAL gameplay trailers starting at like….TGS”

    We got gameplay trailers for Binary Domain as far back as May… The same for Aliens CM which we only saw properly for the first time last week.

    Saying they’ve been keeping this game a secret overlooks the amount of games that are actually undermarketed, like Aliens Infestations and the sort. Getting the press excited does not equal success, especially when success for SEGA is 1 million with this title, thats global sales. If anything that is entirely achievable considering the sales of Vanquish and Alpha Protocol.

  8. -nSega54- says:

    lol dude not to sound obnoxious here but do you want to bet? Binary Domain will not make the NPD monthly top 10.

    It’ll do Vanquish numbers if it’s lucky but that’s not the type of success SEGA needs to be a major player in the gaming industry. They’re incredibly lucky to have Sammy right now. It’s not enough anymore, unfortunately, to just have games be successful in Japan, and Sega West needs to stop relying just on Sonic for success.

  9. -nSega54- says:

    Dark Souls will be incredibly successful, in fact, I think it already is. It’ll sell far more than Binary Domain will and that’s because Atlus was successfully able to establish a brand with Demon’s Souls and Namco will now ride on that brand for success. Atlus knows how to market a game to their audience and make it a success.

    Vanquish wasn’t a failure just due to timing, it was also a failure due to marketing. People looked at it as a Gears of War ripoff because Sega did not do nearly enough to show the game off and explain to gamers WHY it was different from Gears of War. Platinum Games themselves have even said this, that they didn’t feel the game was given enough of a showing in the West to prove to them why it wasn’t just your average cover shooter.

    Binary Domain is no better so far. The game’s demo booth was practically shoved into the corner at E3, Sega didn’t even create an E3-specific trailer for it, none of the Western press yet seems to have gotten their hands on the game save for EXTREMELY tiny demos, and the majority of Sega’s trailers so far have focused on the cutscenes (with bad VO) not the gameplay itself.

    I’m telling you, Sega is not currently setting up Binary Domain to be a success, they’re setting it up to be a niche title like MadWorld and Vanquish when what they NEED desperately is a success outside the Sonic universe. I was originally skeptical on Binary Domain because the game at E3 looked terrible, but the TGS showing has revealed graphics that can be called “good” even by Western standards, so show it off, already!

    *rant over.*

  10. Aki-at says:

    “lol dude not to sound obnoxious here but do you want to bet? Binary Domain will not make the NPD monthly top 10”

    Neither did Bayonetta? That game sold over 1.35 million globally. Neither did Sonic and the Secret Rings, that game did over 2 million globally. Neither did Sonic Rush, another game that did over 2 million globally. Neither did Aliens vs Predators, another game that did over a million globally.

    What relevence does breaking into the top ten have? It’s selling that matters in the long run on a consistent basis around the world and in that regard, a million is possible. Why would I agree to a bet that skews in someone elses favour and takes into account only frontloaded sales in one region, when I sam saying the game doing over a million worldwide is possible. That is selling 166,666 on each format over three regions, that is extremely possible.

    “It’ll do Vanquish numbers if it’s lucky but that’s not the type of success SEGA needs to be a major player in the gaming industry. They’re incredibly lucky to have Sammy right now. It’s not enough anymore, unfortunately, to just have games be successful in Japan, and Sega West needs to stop relying just on Sonic for success.”

    I do not think you pay attention to my sale reports or analysis, do you?

    As for SEGA Europe/America trying to focus on other franchises, they had the Marvel license for a while, now they have the Alien’s license and despite the no interest on this site with the exception of select few members, Football Manager and Total War are both million sellers on a yearly basis. So to say they only rely on success on the Sonic series is wrong, its their key franchise sure, but Sonic is not their only seller, certainly not in Europe. As it is though, they are the sixth most successful third party publisher, that already makes them a key player in the industry.

  11. -nSega54- says:

    Selling 1 million copies isn’t a whole lot in this industry these days, hate to tell ya man. What was considered a smashing success back in the early 2000s is no longer viewed that way. Selling “over 1 million” isn’t enough to keep a company afloat in the days of expensive HD game development and the weakening of the US dollar/strength of the Japanese yen. Binary Domain selling 1 million over a period of time will not make Sega money.

    I do read your financial reports, dude! I know Vanquish sold 800,000+ worldwide, but the game was still seen as a financial disappointment both by Sega and Platinum; To stay profitable in the gaming industry it’s not enough to have a few moderately successful games, you need multi-million sellers. You need blockbusters. It’s not enough to just be a success on paper, Sega needs to make money in the gaming industry again. 1 million for a game like Binary Domain will not bring Sega profit, hell, Yakuza, their most consistent franchise, doesn’t even bring them profit, they “break even” on each installment with its Japanese sales. Again, things would have been different for Yakuza had Sega not failed to launch the property well in the West, but like I’ve been saying, Sega West’s “focus on one game at a time” promotional strategy isn’t a great one, because then when the game comes out and if it disappoints (Aliens vs. Predator) it doesn’t achieve the long-term success to keep Sega’s money flowing.

  12. Aki-at says:

    “Selling 1 million copies isn’t a whole lot in this industry these days, hate to tell ya man. What was considered a smashing success back in the early 2000s is no longer viewed that way. Selling “over 1 million” isn’t enough to keep a company afloat in the days of expensive HD game development and the weakening of the US dollar/strength of the Japanese yen. Binary Domain selling 1 million over a period of time will not make Sega money”

    Selling over a million is still a fantastic number in the industry these days, were did you get the idea it was not? Not every games is a Gears or Halo or GTA, there are series out there were a million sales is considered very good.

    With Binary Domain, it is a new IP, selling over a million for a new IP would be considered a massive success. Its what occurs with a sequel that matters. How many new IPs sell over a million first time round, not that many. Look at Dead Space, it only managed a million but it allowed EA to establish a brand, much like Binary Domain would do.

    I am not sure how you can come to a conclusion how much SEGA needs to sell on Binary Domain for it to make money for SEGA, where did you come up with such conclusions?

    “I do read your financial reports, dude! I know Vanquish sold 800,000+ worldwide, but the game was still seen as a financial disappointment both by Sega and Platinum; To stay profitable in the gaming industry it’s not enough to have a few moderately successful games, you need multi-million sellers”

    Vanquish was expected to sell between 1 million – 1.5 million, it missed that mark by a good 170,000 units. And that is incorrect, to be successful in the industry you need to have a decent number of moderate sellers, then one or two multi-million sellers. SEGA has Sonic the Hedgehog and the various licenses picked up, there is a reason the company is one of the better placed in the industry even after it’s terrible 08 and 09.

    “You need blockbusters. It’s not enough to just be a success on paper, Sega needs to make money in the gaming industry again. 1 million for a game like Binary Domain will not bring Sega profit, hell, Yakuza, their most consistent franchise, doesn’t even bring them profit, they “break even” on each installment with its Japanese sales”

    SEGA is making money, 05 they made money, 06 they made money, 07 they made money, 08 and 09 they lost money (When the global recession was at it’s worth) they returned to making money in 10, at the end of 11 they expect to make money in the consumer division. Yakuza 3 was the only title that broke even for SEGA (At 500,000 no less) Yakuza 4 and Yakuza of the End (As well as Black Panther) all ended up being profitable for SEGA.

    As for Binary Domain’s figure, how do you know the game will not be profitable at 1 million? Unlike Yakuza, Binary Domain does not need licensed big time voice actors (None of which they have) they do not have licensed alcohol, licensed hostesses, licensed stores to the level of Yakuza etc, that series has a lot of licenses that bolster it’s cost. I’d like to point out a lot of major games (Mass Effect, Dead Space, Ninja Gaiden 2 etc) only did a million initially yet those are all considered successes by their respective publishers.

    Were did you get the cost of Binary Domain’s development? How do you know it needs to sell so and so to be considered a success when SEGA has said so otherwise?

    “Sega West’s “focus on one game at a time” promotional strategy isn’t a great one, because then when the game comes out and if it disappoints (Aliens vs. Predator) it doesn’t achieve the long-term success to keep Sega’s money flowing.”

    Aliens vs Predator was one of SEGA’s best selling games last year? One of the best selling titles in various European countries too.

    And long term success? SEGA has one of the best selling catalogue titles in the industry, a large amount of their games are known for being long sellers and their reports show this.

  13. -nSega54- says:

    For some reason I can’t access the Dashboard so I’ll reply this way, lol.

    “Selling over a million is still a fantastic number in the industry these days, were did you get the idea it was not? Not every games is a Gears or Halo or GTA, there are series out there were a million sales is considered very good.”

    It wasn’t for Vanquish and it won’t be for Binary Domain.

    “Vanquish was expected to sell between 1 million – 1.5 million, it missed that mark by a good 170,000 units. And that is incorrect, to be successful in the industry you need to have a decent number of moderate sellers, then one or two multi-million sellers. SEGA has Sonic the Hedgehog and the various licenses picked up, there is a reason the company is one of the better placed in the industry even after it’s terrible 08 and 09. ”

    You post financial reports on here often; you should know better than anyone that the VAST majority of Sega’s profit has been from Sammy and their pachinko machines, not their Games sector. In fact, this sector tends to see a decline whenever a Mario And Sonic game isn’t released.

    “As for Binary Domain’s figure, how do you know the game will not be profitable at 1 million? Unlike Yakuza, Binary Domain does not need licensed big time voice actors (None of which they have) they do not have licensed alcohol, licensed hostesses, licensed stores to the level of Yakuza etc, that series has a lot of licenses that bolster it’s cost. I’d like to point out a lot of major games (Mass Effect, Dead Space, Ninja Gaiden 2 etc) only did a million initially yet those are all considered successes by their respective publishers.”

    First of all, Binary Domain selling 1 million+ alone I think is a bit of a longshot. Second of all, you say moderate success is okay as long as sequels are made; sequels aren’t being made, they haven’t for a single of Platinum’s titles, Resonance of Fate, or, well, really, any new IP Sega has established, with the exception of Yakuza (a last gen franchise) and Valkyria, which saw a switch to the far more profitable handheld market.

    “And long term success? SEGA has one of the best selling catalogue titles in the industry, a large amount of their games are known for being long sellers and their reports show this.”\

    If this was the case they would actually be a substantial amount of money on their games, which is not the case. If Sega didn’t have Sammy’s profits they would not be able to survive as a major player in the industry. Sad but true.

    Aliens vs Predator has to my knowledge been discontinued a loooong time ago in the US. I’m glad it did well in Europe but in North America you can’t even find the game anymore.

  14. -nSega54- says:

    ^Edit; not that it’s impossible to find (before anyone points out Amazon.com) but generally it is not a game that has continued to sell.

  15. Aki-at says:

    “It wasn’t for Vanquish and it won’t be for Binary Domain”

    Vanquish did not sell over a million. Three months after it’s release, it only did a further 10k, that’s why SEGA is not going to continue with that series.

    “You post financial reports on here often; you should know better than anyone that the VAST majority of Sega’s profit has been from Sammy and their pachinko machines, not their Games sector”

    I was not even talking about Sammy? Go check their reports again, SEGA posts operating profits in their consumer division those years.

    And if you do really want to bring Sammy into this argument, on a regular basis they are more profitable than any third party developer with the exception of Activision (Which SEGA Sammy did actually profit more than last fiscal term)

    “In fact, this sector tends to see a decline whenever a Mario And Sonic game isn’t released”

    No it does not, where are you coming out with these figures? Last year was the best result the division saw, that had no Mario & Sonic games helping to bolster that $80 million profit. The fiscal year with a Mario & Sonic game saw them lose a large sum of money.

    “First of all, Binary Domain selling 1 million+ alone I think is a bit of a longshot”

    166,666 across 2 platforms in three regions is not that much of a longshot.

    “Second of all, you say moderate success is okay as long as sequels are made; sequels aren’t being made, they haven’t for a single of Platinum’s titles Resonance of Fate, or, well, really, any new IP Sega has established with the exception of Yakuza (a last gen franchise) and Valkyria, which saw a switch to the far more profitable handheld market.”

    Anarchy Reigns is pretty much MadWorld 2. So that is one, otherwise, Platinum Games have had 2 failures and the other game, Bayonetta, will only be developed by Kamiya, who more than likely is or just wants to do another new IP, SEGA will not force him. They even have spoken about wanting to do a sequel, so its upto the developer now if they wish to.

    End of Eternity would be upto Tri-Ace if they wish to develop it further, SEGA indicated they would be willing to support a sequel. Series such as 7th Dragon and Hatsune Miku (Which was only meant to last for one game, now spans over 4 and counting) are also good examples of moderate successful new IPs. I am not sure why you’re comparing them to Binary Domain though, it’s target is a million, none of the examples you listed ever hit the million mark.

    “If this was the case they would actually be a substantial amount of money on their games, which is not the case. If Sega didn’t have Sammy’s profits they would not be able to survive as a major player in the industry. Sad but true”

    Spending substantial amount of money is not the answer, SEGA could spend like THQ and Take Two, it would not lead to long term success. Japanese publishers have been better placed for long term success, they have for the most part produced better profits and have much lower debt than their Western counterparts, SEGA follows the same model.

    Whilst it is true SEGA would not have as much money in the same period without Sammy, no third party publisher with the exception of Activision could rival Sammy, so a bit of a strawman argument. Satomi wants the group to become the largest media organization in the world eventually, so it is not a short term goal, but a long term one.

    “Aliens vs Predator has to my knowledge been discontinued a loooong time ago in the US. I’m glad it did well in Europe but in North America you can’t even find the game anymore”

    Anecdotal evidence, means nothing.

  16. -nSega54- says:

    “Vanquish did not sell over a million. Three months after it’s release, it only did a further 10k, that’s why SEGA is not going to continue with that series.”

    What makes you think Binary Domain will do any better? The game is even more Western in appearance than Vanquish was, which will hurt its success in Japan, and I don’t see Sega West doing any better of a job promoting BD than they did Vanquish.

    “I was not even talking about Sammy? Go check their reports again, SEGA posts operating profits in their consumer division those years.

    And if you do really want to bring Sammy into this argument, on a regular basis they are more profitable than any third party developer with the exception of Activision (Which SEGA Sammy did actually profit more than last fiscal term)”

    Sega’s profits are nothing to write home about and would never sustain the company without Sammy’s backing. Activision has the same issue, they can afford to have “meh” profits because of Blizard, their other half, which brings in the $$ by the boatload. The difference is, Activision’s games actually typically sell. They’re just far more expensive to produce and are marketed out the arse.

    “No it does not, where are you coming out with these figures? Last year was the best result the division saw, that had no Mario & Sonic games helping to bolster that $80 million profit. The fiscal year with a Mario & Sonic game saw them lose a large sum of money.”

    Are you talking about Sega-Sammy or just Sega? Please don’t make me dig up the reports dude…..

    “End of Eternity would be upto Tri-Ace if they wish to develop it further, SEGA indicated they would be willing to support a sequel.”

    Mike Hayes has already said that Sega doesn’t feel the series is financially viable enough to support more installments going forward. So I’m not sure who you’ve heard from, but he’s a pretty reliable source. It was originally intended to be like a 10-game series.

    Anarchy Reigns is not MadWorld 2, it’s a multiplayer beat-em-up which seems to share characters but nothing else with MadWorld.

    “166,666 across 2 platforms in three regions is not that much of a longshot.”

    So you’re talking 333,332 in all 3 regions. That seems like a stretch to me. Vanquish certainly didn’t hit that point in Japan, for example, and Binary Domain has a lot less going for it.

    “Spending substantial amount of money is not the answer, SEGA could spend like THQ and Take Two, it would not lead to long term success. ”

    I agree with that, but it has been said many times by Sega themselves that their Western sales (particularly in North America) have been disappointing to them and their weakness. So I sort of tend to trust them over you, sorry man. In my opinion, Sega needs to devote more of their resources into letting the public know (through the video game press, through events, previews, etc) exactly what each of their games are about, and why people should care. There was a time when the name “Sega” on the box meant something, but that time is past (‘cept for a select few, like those of us on this site) for the mainstream gamer. Sega needs to work to promote their games. Vanquish didn’t even get a TV campaign in North America, which was a huge oversight.

  17. Aki-at says:

    “What makes you think Binary Domain will do any better? The game is even more Western in appearance than Vanquish was, which will hurt its success in Japan, and I don’t see Sega West doing any better of a job promoting BD than they did Vanquish”

    Binary Domain was voted one of the ten popular titles in TGS. It’s producer is also much bigger in his native country than Mikami has been recently. SEGA West just need to see repeat sales of Vanquish in the West and improved sales in Japan (All indications pointing towards such) and they will break that target.

    “Sega’s profits are nothing to write home about and would never sustain the company without Sammy’s backing”

    In 2006, when EA’s net income (Prior to their non-GAAP accounts) was $43 million, SEGA’s consumer division on the other hand was in profits of around $25 million. Would you now indicate EA cannot support it’s business? Especially as the following years decimated their total profits as far back as 1994?

    And as long as a company is able to profit (And which SEGA has shown on a regular basis more so than not after they left the console industry) I do not know how you can come to the conclusion they cannot support themselves? SEGA’s other divisions (Arcade and amusement centres) also help bolster their profits and those divisions are coming back to healthy levels. If you want to only discuss one particular segment of SEGA’s it is only fair we speak of solely Namco’s consumer division which until this year was in decline, or Square without the help of Enix’s franchise.

    Furthermore why act as if Satomi is not trying to build an empire here? Prior to the merger he was looking to establish a global media company which he is still set on course to do so.

    I’d also like to add that THQ and Take Two have been able to fund their business even with the mounting debts, why would SEGA, who are in profits, not be able to do the same?

    “Activision has the same issue, they can afford to have “meh” profits because of Blizard, their other half, which brings in the $$ by the boatload. The difference is, Activision’s games actually typically sell. They’re just far more expensive to produce and are marketed out the arse”

    It is actually Vivendi SA that is bankrolling Activision. Not Blizzard, the profits of their consumer division would be nothing to write home about going by your own thinking and words.

    “Mike Hayes has already said that Sega doesn’t feel the series is financially viable enough to support more installments going forward. So I’m not sure who you’ve heard from, but he’s a pretty reliable source. It was originally intended to be like a 10-game series”

    When did Mike Hayes ever say such a thing? And it was spoken by Kawagoe, head of SEGA’s consumer division in Japan, that End of Eternity sold well enough to get a sequel. I’d imagine though that it is dependent on Tri-Ace. Also it was intended to be a ten year media franchise, not ten games.

    “Anarchy Reigns is not MadWorld 2, it’s a multiplayer beat-em-up which seems to share characters but nothing else with MadWorld”

    A spiritual successor to the original MadWorld. It has multiple characters from the original series, if it was such a failed attempt, why would SEGA allow Platinum Games to make another game with the same characters?

    “So you’re talking 333,332 in all 3 regions. That seems like a stretch to me. Vanquish certainly didn’t hit that point in Japan, for example, and Binary Domain has a lot less going for it.”

    In Japan? It’s already one the popularity award in TGS, making it one of the most wanted titles at the event. So it already has more going for it in Japan than Vanquish ever did.

    As for the Western regions, Binary Domain will attract a lot more sales than Vanquish so long as SEGA markets it and gets the demo out in good time. Vanquish boosting around and dying of limited hits is not something that would give enjoyment to most third person fans.

    “I agree with that, but it has been said many times by Sega themselves that their Western sales (particularly in North America) have been disappointing to them and their weakness. So I sort of tend to trust them over you, sorry man”

    Over what? You pointed out that their titles do not enjoy long term success, I pointed out they have one of the best catalogue sales in the industry, you pointed out that if this was the case their games should have a larger budget, I pointed out such is a fool hardy idea because spending such a large amount of extra money would not lead to better profit margins (Although what budget of their games had to do with catalogue sales, I have no idea) and now you are trying to point out that slow American sales is the reasons that they do not spend said amount of money on their games? I think you have missed several points getting to that line of thinking.

    “In my opinion, Sega needs to devote more of their resources into letting the public know (through the video game press, through events, previews, etc) exactly what each of their games are about, and why people should care. There was a time when the name “Sega” on the box meant something, but that time is past (‘cept for a select few, like those of us on this site) for the mainstream gamer. Sega needs to work to promote their games. Vanquish didn’t even get a TV campaign in North America, which was a huge oversight”

    SEGA was only really successful in America during the 16 bit era, otherwise they have not been a big publisher in the United States, so I have little idea what you mean by SEGA meant something on the box, it was only for a period of half a decade that it did. They are more successful now than in prior years in N America.

    As for the rest of your comment, this all comes back to Binary Domain, how is it being poorly marketed? I fail to see how they can start marketing a game five months from release. Press coverage will occur closer to the release of the game (Sonic Generation’s coverage only begun recently) and you will start to see TV spots closer to release.

  18. -nSega54- says:

    “Binary Domain was voted one of the ten popular titles in TGS. It’s producer is also much bigger in his native country than Mikami has been recently.”

    Didn’t seem to help Monkey Ball over there…Don’t get me wrong, it’ll do solid numbers in Japan but I don’t think it’ll be a repeat of Vanquish in the West, it’ll do less. Unless we see Sega really begin putting this game out there, and I don’t see that happening.

    “In 2006, when EA’s net income (Prior to their non-GAAP accounts) was $43 million, SEGA’s consumer division on the other hand was in profits of around $25 million. Would you now indicate EA cannot support it’s business? Especially as the following years decimated their total profits as far back as 1994?
    And as long as a company is able to profit (And which SEGA has shown on a regular basis more so than not after they left the console industry) I do not know how you can come to the conclusion they cannot support themselves? SEGA’s other divisions (Arcade and amusement centres) also help bolster their profits and those divisions are coming back to healthy levels. If you want to only discuss one particular segment of SEGA’s it is only fair we speak of solely Namco’s consumer division which until this year was in decline, or Square without the help of Enix’s franchise.
    Furthermore why act as if Satomi is not trying to build an empire here? Prior to the merger he was looking to establish a global media company which he is still set on course to do so. ”

    EA is struggling and they have made that very clear. EA actually *IS* a company currently struggling to support its business, and they (and their shareholders) have made it clear in recent years that something needs to change and that they need to drastically step it up in their financials.

    As far as judging Sega as a whole, the problem is that the department of Sega that we all care about (the games division) is consistently labeled their weakest link, in one financial report after the next. If this continues there is nothing stopping Sammy from in the future scaling back (or pulling entirely) Sega’s game division. That’s my big fear here. That’s why I’d love to see Sega find the success that they and their games deserve.

    Regarding Mike Hayes: I have to say, I can’t find the link. 🙁 I really do recall him saying that it was unlikely that the franchise would continue, but I guess for now I’ll concede that one to you because I can’t find it. I do know though that Tri-Ace expressed interest in doing a sequel, so I doubt it’s them who is standing in the way.

    “A spiritual successor to the original MadWorld. It has multiple characters from the original series, if it was such a failed attempt, why would SEGA allow Platinum Games to make another game with the same characters?”

    Sega would say to Platinum “you aren’t allowed to feature MadWorld characters in your next game?” That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Vivi and Auron are featured in Kingdom Hearts, that doesn’t make it a Final Fantasy game. Anarchy Reigns doesn’t look like MadWorld 2 at all.

    “Over what? You pointed out that their titles do not enjoy long term success, I pointed out they have one of the best catalogue sales in the industry, you pointed out that if this was the case their games should have a larger budget, I pointed out such is a fool hardy idea because spending such a large amount of extra money would not lead to better profit margins (Although what budget of their games had to do with catalogue sales, I have no idea) and now you are trying to point out that slow American sales is the reasons that they do not spend said amount of money on their games? I think you have missed several points getting to that line of thinking.”

    No, you misunderstood me. I said that if Sega had great-selling back catalogue, their GAME division would be more profitable. I didn’t necessarily intend to link that to game budgets, though I suppose that wouldn’t be a big leap to make.

    “As for the rest of your comment, this all comes back to Binary Domain, how is it being poorly marketed? I fail to see how they can start marketing a game five months from release. Press coverage will occur closer to the release of the game (Sonic Generation’s coverage only begun recently) and you will start to see TV spots closer to release”

    Let me explain what I mean. As a publisher, you send Preview builds to the gaming press; send them out to IGN, Gamespot, etc. These sites play the preview builds and release impressions, video, etc. Also, often publihers will drop by gaming journalism outlets to demo off games. Again, Sega’s been lax on this so far with Binary Domain; with the exception of brief demoes at trade shows, the Western press has not seen much of this game. Trailers. We have not gotten Western trailers. 90% of the trailers we have for Binary Domain are leaked from Japan. Sega West has not been creating BD trailers that (again, would be posted on gaming websites) are targeting the North American market. Nobody’s expecting TV spots now, but the act of getting the public (and gamers) excited for a game involves working with gaming journalism outlets and getting the game OUT there. If I didn’t read Segabits or use the Sega forums, I wouldn’t know this game existed.

  19. Old Snake says:

    SEGA barely made any videos of Vanquish before it was out. Most people did not even know what anything past the one demo level looked like, meanwhile Binary Domain had a 4 minute long trailer just released a few days ago. There is no reason to assume they will make the same mistake again and that this time it will be even worse, especially as this has multiplayer too.

    Comparing Final Fantasy cameos in Kingdom Hearts to Anarchy Reigns being the spiritual successor of MadWorld is a bit LOL. Anarchy Reigns takes place right after MadWorld in the same world with the same characters, similarly themed levels, gameplay and music. The only real differences are that the art direction and focus on multiplayer, which still plays similarly.

    About Dark Souls… I would wait until the numbers are revealed. A lot of people are interested because the core fanbase is very vocal and active, but that does not mean Namco figured out how to sell anything. They cannot even make Pac-Man games sell well anymore. It will be under 20 dollars by January, I am sure.

  20. Aki-at says:

    “Didn’t seem to help Monkey Ball over there…Don’t get me wrong, it’ll do solid numbers in Japan but I don’t think it’ll be a repeat of Vanquish in the West, it’ll do less. Unless we see Sega really begin putting this game out there, and I don’t see that happening”

    Monkey Ball was never popular in Japan.

    Binary Domain was already voted one of the most anticipated games at the show, so indications are it will do better in Japan. As for the West, Alpha Protocol also managed 700,000, less than Vanquish but still pushed a large shipment for such a low-key game. As it is there is already similar levels of hype to Binary Domain and Vanquish.

    “EA is struggling and they have made that very clear. EA actually *IS* a company currently struggling to support its business, and they (and their shareholders) have made it clear in recent years that something needs to change and that they need to drastically step it up in their financials”

    They are only struggling to support their business because all of their gains from upto 1994 has been wiped out. SEGA is not in a similar situation, so if Electronic Arts can support themselves still at this point, I see little to no reason why you happen to think SEGA cannot, especially as they have drastically reshaped their N American arm.

    “As far as judging Sega as a whole, the problem is that the department of Sega that we all care about (the games division) is consistently labeled their weakest link, in one financial report after the next. If this continues there is nothing stopping Sammy from in the future scaling back (or pulling entirely) Sega’s game division. That’s my big fear here. That’s why I’d love to see Sega find the success that they and their games deserve”

    Perhaps I did not make myself clear enough.

    Hajime Satomi, the majority shareholder and founder of Sammy, purchased SEGA, along with film studios, animation studios and beefed up SEGA’s toy division because he is looking to create one of the largest media companies in the world. What will happen, if SEGA continues to lose money, is them taking less risks, as it stands they are still taking a large amount of risks from the likes of Binary Domain, Anarchy Reigns, R Thief and the countless out new IPs they are taking.

    Satomi’s son, Haruki Satomi, now also works within SEGA as the head of their Digital Games market, he would be mostly responsible for bringing titles such as Guardian Heroes and Virtua Fighter 5 Final Showdown etc to consoles. Satomi is not about to ditch his vision of creating a global media company because 08 and 09 was terrible for the group (However it should be noted Sammy posted the majority of those losses) he has invested too much to just ditch it. If you usually do read the reports, they point out the North American market, which until recently, was mishandled by Simon Jeffrey, what they are looking for is similar success they found in Europe. Home sales however, are always indicated as being strong, which shows in their reports on a yearly basis.

    “Regarding Mike Hayes: I have to say, I can’t find the link. I really do recall him saying that it was unlikely that the franchise would continue, but I guess for now I’ll concede that one to you because I can’t find it. I do know though that Tri-Ace expressed interest in doing a sequel, so I doubt it’s them who is standing in the way”

    It was a SEGA of Japan title made mostly for the Japanese market, so Hayes would or should have very little control over it. As for a sequel, or if it would come, again as I said prior, it is not fair to compare it to my original point, Binary Domain doing a million. If Binary Domain does End of Eternity numbers, it will not get a sequel.

    “Sega would say to Platinum “you aren’t allowed to feature MadWorld characters in your next game?” That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Vivi and Auron are featured in Kingdom Hearts, that doesn’t make it a Final Fantasy game. Anarchy Reigns doesn’t look like MadWorld 2 at all”

    Except both primary characters from MadWorld are the main characters.

    It does not look like MadWorld 2 no, but it is the spiritual successor and uses similar ideals.

    “No, you misunderstood me. I said that if Sega had great-selling back catalogue, their GAME division would be more profitable. I didn’t necessarily intend to link that to game budgets, though I suppose that wouldn’t be a big leap to make.”

    How so? Catalogue titles are usually titles that have gone fairly low in price, to expect a large amount of profit from them would be wrong. The fact is Sonic, Yakuza, Monkey Ball, Football Manager etc have all known to have long legs in sales and continue to do so.

    “Let me explain what I mean. As a publisher, you send Preview builds to the gaming press; send them out to IGN, Gamespot, etc. These sites play the preview builds and release impressions, video, etc. Also, often publihers will drop by gaming journalism outlets to demo off games. Again, Sega’s been lax on this so far with Binary Domain; with the exception of brief demoes at trade shows, the Western press has not seen much of this game”

    The game is five months from release, no publisher would send a preview build that far off from release.

    “Trailers. We have not gotten Western trailers. 90% of the trailers we have for Binary Domain are leaked from Japan. Sega West has not been creating BD trailers that (again, would be posted on gaming websites) are targeting the North American market”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NNRsaXq4LQ&feature=channel_video_title
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOW1qHKtDCQ
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEkW4rVMXi8
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plKpkPlPRz8
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDnqBpyXwtI

    That is five trailers for the Western audience, the following are for the Japanese audience

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X5f1GMYOXc
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrEfHSYVgoY
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMQUrI4RAbY
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1shMYjvJWmI

    So basically, this point is wrong. The Western marketing for Binary Domain is on par with the Japanese audience, if not slightly better.

    “Nobody’s expecting TV spots now, but the act of getting the public (and gamers) excited for a game involves working with gaming journalism outlets and getting the game OUT there. If I didn’t read Segabits or use the Sega forums, I wouldn’t know this game existed.”

    This again is anecdotal evidence, I could point out I know a few (And I do) who are excited for this game and who are not into SEGA in general.

  21. -nSega54- says:

    lol I’ma try to condense down some of these responses, we’ll see how it goes. :]

    Binary Domain=hyped? Dude I just don’t see it, even the Youtube trailers you linked me to aren’t exactly getting a lot of hits, and that 1st trailer seems to be outright hated. I don’t think Sega posting a couple vids to Sega of America’s Youtube page exactly qualifies as good promotion, especially when Videos 2,3, and 4 all have under 5,000 hits. That’s good marketing? I can point to a number of dumb Youtube videos from complete nobodies that get more hits than that. That isn’t effective marketing.

    Sega needs to appeal to the Western Press to actually DISTRIBUTE those trailers. It’s not enough to just post them for the sake of posting them. That’s the biggest difference between BD’s NA vs Japanese marketing; with one we’re seeing a media blitz, with the other, we have 2 trailers (1 with distracting narration, which is a big “No” for a Western trailer) and some minute-long gameplay footage hidden on a Youtube page. Not great. Maybe slightly more than I gave Sega America credit for but not by much.

    Sammy’s ambitions; You can have a global media company without video games dude, especially when said video games aren’t making them all that much money. I think it’s in the best interest of every Sega fan for Sega’s games business to become more profitable, wouldn’t you agree?

    “The game is five months from release, no publisher would send a preview build that far off from release.”

    Well, not true, tentpole releases are previewed FAR before 5 months. Rage was previewed for IGN, for example, back in April, game just came out now. Seriously man, compare this list;

    http://xbox360.ign.com/objects/926/926417_articles.html

    To this list;

    http://xbox360.ign.com/objects/093/093832_articles.html

    You can’t even do it with a straight face.

    “This again is anecdotal evidence, I could point out I know a few (And I do) who are excited for this game and who are not into SEGA in general.”

    They certainly exist, I’m not denying that, haha. I’m denying that they exist in large enough numbers to make this game a hit.

  22. Aki-at says:

    “Binary Domain=hyped? Dude I just don’t see it, even the Youtube trailers you linked me to aren’t exactly getting a lot of hits, and that 1st trailer seems to be outright hated. I don’t think Sega posting a couple vids to Sega of America’s Youtube page exactly qualifies as good promotion, especially when Videos 2,3, and 4 all have under 5,000 hits. That’s good marketing? I can point to a number of dumb Youtube videos from complete nobodies that get more hits than that. That isn’t effective marketing”

    Now you are changing the argument. Your original point was SEGA was not releasing any trailers for the Western audience, when infact, they are, much more than the 10% you claimed, infact the Western audience have enjoyed MORE trailers.

    I have no idea why you’ve decided to change your point again, but if you want me to demonstrate videos with high view counts.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v9pt8obwsE < 111,000 views
    http://www.gametrailers.com/video/the-machine-binary-domain/713346 < Same trailer as above 78,000 views
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NNRsaXq4LQ < 49,000 views
    http://www.gametrailers.com/video/debut-trailer-binary-domain/708000 < same trailer as above 124,000 views
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD8Uc4l1Qfc < 22,000 views
    http://www.gametrailers.com/video/core-weapons-binary-domain/717469 < Same trailer as above 33,000 views
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oVE15XzQhg < 19,000 views
    http://www.gametrailers.com/video/e3-2011-binary-domain/716557 < 37,000 views

    That is, just those selected videos, has a total of at least 473,000 views. If you wish to be cherry picking points and arguments, its best to have it backed up. You point out some of the videos I linked to have less than x amount of views, for the most part those trailers were released after they originally debuted and usually exclusively for IGN or the like but now I have demonstrated two videos that have over 100,000 views. This is 5 months away from launch, still a relatively long enough time to generate more hype.

    You say there is no evidence of hype, I was not arguing there was, I was saying there was similar levels to Vanquish which is true.

    "Sega needs to appeal to the Western Press to actually DISTRIBUTE those trailers. It’s not enough to just post them for the sake of posting them. That’s the biggest difference between BD’s NA vs Japanese marketing; with one we’re seeing a media blitz, with the other, we have 2 trailers (1 with distracting narration, which is a big “No” for a Western trailer) and some minute-long gameplay footage hidden on a Youtube page. Not great. Maybe slightly more than I gave Sega America credit for but not by much."

    But you are wrong on those counts? The original trailer was a worldwide exclusive for Gametrailers, which unfortunately did not garner much interest for the game but it put it out there. The second trailer was exclusive to SEGA Europe, went on to get over 100,000 views and is their 18th most watched video. The trailer after that was released exclusively for IGN, the following weapons trailer was again exclusive to SEGA Europe's account, then followed by an exclusive 4 minute trailer for IGN. So they show that, despite your claims, giving three exclusives to two major game sites, they do infact distribute their trailers to these media outlets you claim they do not otherwise.

    And why are you only referring to two trailers? It is actually in total 6 trailers, two focusing on gameplay solely, one focusing on concept, two focusing on setting and one focusing on storyline. The latter I see no reason to not include, the plotline is meant to be a strong point for Binary Domain.

    "Sammy’s ambitions; You can have a global media company without video games dude, especially when said video games aren’t making them all that much money. I think it’s in the best interest of every Sega fan for Sega’s games business to become more profitable, wouldn’t you agree?"

    Not what Satomi's goal was when he purchased SEGA, he does not want a company that solely occupies the animation space, but in every entertainment medium and video games is a pretty big player in that regards.

    You are changing my point, again. You are arguing that Satomi will cut loose his losses and ditch SEGA whenever he can if matters do not improve, when SEGA Sammy is made up of around 50 different companies, out of those 50 companies, SEGA is the second most profitable company. He has shown his intent long ago and SEGA makes more than enough money to consistently justify new IPs, instead of focusing on sequels, to justify taking risk on several products. SEGA needs to be profitable, but you are making assumptions without looking at certain things, the group blames overseas sales in N America, not sales in Japan or in Europe. SEGA is not considered the weak link in the group, but the sales in N America are sluggish. It really has no bearing on the points you are making, especially when the blame for the lack of N America sales is placed solely on the shoulders of Simon Jeffrey from SEGA's higher ups.

    "Well, not true, tentpole releases are previewed FAR before 5 months. Rage was previewed for IGN, for example, back in April, game just came out now. Seriously man, compare this list;

    http://xbox360.ign.com/objects/926/926417_articles.html

    To this list;

    http://xbox360.ign.com/objects/093/093832_articles.html

    You can’t even do it with a straight face."

    You use an example, with a game, that's first article stretches back to JUNE 2007 over 4 years ago, to a game that was not even announced until December last year? Did you even see some of the articles linked? 2 are regarding Breaking Bad (And Rage is only linked because of a minor cameo)

    Finally what is your point? The previews for Rage are all effectively what IGN played at booths which surprise surprise is exactly what Binary Domain's previews are. What you claim that SEGA is not doing but other publishers are, is infact, what other publishers are doing too. So again, where are the games being previewed off at the offices of the publications to the extent you claimed?

    "They certainly exist, I’m not denying that, haha. I’m denying that they exist in large enough numbers to make this game a hit"

    That was not my point, you claimed you never would have heard of Binary Domain if you did not work on a SEGA site, I counter claimed I knew people who are not SEGA fans and are excited about Binary Domain using my own evidence. I could claim I would never have heard of Alpha Protocol or Vanquish if I never went onto a SEGA site and still would not, but those games sold numbers you predict Binary Domain cannot match.

  23. -nSega54- says:

    I conceded to you that Sega of America did more than I originally gave them credit for…I said that later in the post. It’s best to read my whole post before working on your reply. My point is that while Sega DID create the trailers (which you proved to me and which I admitted, yeah, they did) I didn’t know about them because they were posted nowhere except Sega’s Youtube page. If they aren’t put on sites that people actually read then what’s the point?

    You’re now demonstrating to me that they’ve ended up on Gametrailers, which is good. However, the viewcounts you posted are low by GameTrailers’ standards, just so you know. That doesn’t signify a hyped game. But true, that’s another topic.

    “So they show that, despite your claims, giving three exclusives to two major game sites, they do infact distribute their trailers to these media outlets you claim they do not otherwise.”

    Well I’m glad they’re doing it but they need to do more of it.

    “The latter I see no reason to not include, the plotline is meant to be a strong point for Binary Domain.”

    Long-winded CG cutscenes do not interest Western gamers, that’s what I’m trying to say. They may work in Japan but people in the West by and large like to see gameplay vs. cutscenes. That’s one reason that I’ve thought BD’s marketing has been so ineffective; too much emphasis on story, not enough on the game itself.

    “It really has no bearing on the points you are making, especially when the blame for the lack of N America sales is placed solely on the shoulders of Simon Jeffrey from SEGA’s higher ups.”

    Why do you keep blaming Simon Jeffrey? The Marvel license was his doing, and it’s brought Sega boatloads of cash.

    “Finally what is your point? The previews for Rage are all effectively what IGN played at booths which surprise surprise is exactly what Binary Domain’s previews are. What you claim that SEGA is not doing but other publishers are, is infact, what other publishers are doing too. So again, where are the games being previewed off at the offices of the publications to the extent you claimed?”

    There are those too. My point was that tentpole releases from publishers other than Sega seem to have vastly superior media coverage than games from Sega do. And you can pick apart every sentence of my post but that’s simply the truth and the question is why this is the case and what Sega can do about it.

    “That was not my point, you claimed you never would have heard of Binary Domain if you did not work on a SEGA site, I counter claimed I knew people who are not SEGA fans and are excited about Binary Domain using my own evidence. I could claim I would never have heard of Alpha Protocol or Vanquish if I never went onto a SEGA site and still would not, but those games sold numbers you predict Binary Domain cannot match.”

    Alpha Protocol was also considered a sales flop by Sega.

    Mike Hayes: “Let’s speak very commercially; the game hasn’t sold what we’ve expected, therefore we won’t be doing a sequel.”

    Anyway when I use anecdotal statements they’re not meant to be taken as a statement on what *EVERYONE ELSE THINKS* but an attempt to put certain things into perspective. I’m seriously into gaming, it’s the industry I hope to get into, and if I would not have known about these games had I not been a die-hard Sega fan, then, imo, there’s a problem with their marketing. If Sega’s marketing isn’t reaching someone like me on its own, then imo, it’s an issue.

  24. Aki-at says:

    “It’s best to read my whole post before working on your reply. My point is that while Sega DID create the trailers (which you proved to me and which I admitted, yeah, they did) I didn’t know about them because they were posted nowhere except Sega’s Youtube page. If they aren’t put on sites that people actually read then what’s the point?”

    I did read your whole post. I am breaking down each point, I even told you three of those trailers were on major gaming websites. You had a claim that 90% of the trailers were leaked from Japan, when this was not the case. You claimed they are not making trailers/exclusive trailers for gaming websites, when again this is not the case. When you make erroneous claims, expect them to be shot down.

    “You’re now demonstrating to me that they’ve ended up on Gametrailers, which is good. However, the viewcounts you posted are low by GameTrailers’ standards, just so you know. That doesn’t signify a hyped game. But true, that’s another topic”

    They are not low, compare them to the time of release for Bayonetta, Vanquish, even Ninja Gaiden 2, they are relatively on similar footing. At one point, they had more views then Halo remake, which might still be the case, I have not checked the media total for that game.

    “Long-winded CG cutscenes do not interest Western gamers, that’s what I’m trying to say. They may work in Japan but people in the West by and large like to see gameplay vs. cutscenes. That’s one reason that I’ve thought BD’s marketing has been so ineffective; too much emphasis on story, not enough on the game itself”

    Long-winded? There is only one trailer that focuses solely on storyline.

    There was one trailer that showed the weapons, just under a minute and half in length, the second portion of the trailers that focuses on setting had mainly just gameplay, and we have just got a trailer that is over 4 minutes in worth of gameplay. There is an even split (Thanks in part to the teaser trailer increasing cutscenes time) between gameplay shown and cutscene shown.

    Furthermore, why would they not show the plot? It is meant to be one of the game’s strong point, you might as well ponder why EA marketed the plotline in Mass Effect, or Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid get trailers focusing just on the plot. When this is meant to be one of the strong points of the title, Nagoshi has indicated as much, they will focus on it.

    “Why do you keep blaming Simon Jeffrey? The Marvel license was his doing, and it’s brought Sega boatloads of cash”

    Only Hulk and Iron Man 1 were considered successes. Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America all missed their targets, the latter two by some stretch.

    And I do not blame Jeffrey alone, SEGA’s upper management themselves blame him, he was unable to oversee strengthening of SEGA’s IPs that SoJ handed out to him, he was unable to create strong and powerful base for them in N America as they hoped and he was unable to add to SEGA’s software development team like Hayes has done so at SEGA Europe (Now currently at 4 development teams) infact he bought one and a few years later SEGA sold them. The same occured with Hayes, but by that point he had already purchased two highly successful studios for SEGA.

    Furthermore, the links Jeffrey created with other developers have amounted, in not just myself but SEGA’s management eyes, as almost a complete waste of time. The other licenses he got SEGA into, Charlotte’s Web and the Golden Compass resulted in complete failures for the company.

    “There are those too. My point was that tentpole releases from publishers other than Sega seem to have vastly superior media coverage than games from Sega do. And you can pick apart every sentence of my post but that’s simply the truth and the question is why this is the case and what Sega can do about it”

    You are changing your point. Again. You argued that they should be previewing Binary Domain and give the press copies of demos and what not when this is not standard practise. I never mentioned anything else, I just pointed you out for an incorrect statement.

    “Alpha Protocol was also considered a sales flop by Sega”

    Yes, it is, so is Vanquish. However you are saying its highly unlikely that Binary Domain can sell a lot of copies, I pointed out that, in particular with Alpha Protocol. It can.

    SEGA had AP’s sales at 700,000 – 750,000, over 3 platforms (And we are being very gracious on PC sales) in two regions gives us a total of 116,666 in America and Europe. You are debating that Binary Domain cannot do good numbers because it is underhyped, I have pointed out games with lesser hype still post impressive numbers and in contrast with Alpha Protocol, Binary Domain is seemingly Zelda in comparison.

    “Anyway when I use anecdotal statements they’re not meant to be taken as a statement on what *EVERYONE ELSE THINKS* but an attempt to put certain things into perspective. I’m seriously into gaming, it’s the industry I hope to get into, and if I would not have known about these games had I not been a die-hard Sega fan, then, imo, there’s a problem with their marketing. If Sega’s marketing isn’t reaching someone like me on its own, then imo, it’s an issue.”

    I can say the same thing. I know gamers, I know a lot of them, after football, the largest group of hobbiests I know are gamers and from what I can see, in general, they are interested in Binary Domain, enough so to seem like 1 million is possible.

  25. -nSega54- says:

    “I did read your whole post. I am breaking down each point, I even told you three of those trailers were on major gaming websites. You had a claim that 90% of the trailers were leaked from Japan, when this was not the case. You claimed they are not making trailers/exclusive trailers for gaming websites, when again this is not the case. When you make erroneous claims, expect them to be shot down.”

    I stood corrected that 4 or so trailers DO exist for the Western market, however, I continue to maintain that not enough is done to raise awareness about this game to the gaming public. Yes, there are 4 Western trailers, but none are particularly great (imo) none have received particularly good media presense, and none are going to inspire people (Besides people like us, who will already be buying the game regardless) to pick it up.

    Binary Domain’s at 357k or so on Gametrailers; it’s not awful for a new IP from Japan but for the tentpole release that it *should be* it needs to be better. Sega needs to create IP that do well in the West if they are going to continue to do well in this business. This game seems tailor-made for Western audiences (at least in appearance) and yet Sega’s still treating it like a niche title.

    “Long-winded? There is only one trailer that focuses solely on storyline. ”

    The first trailer was all storyline, then the other one was mostly storyline.

    “Furthermore, why would they not show the plot? It is meant to be one of the game’s strong point, you might as well ponder why EA marketed the plotline in Mass Effect, or Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid get trailers focusing just on the plot. When this is meant to be one of the strong points of the title, Nagoshi has indicated as much, they will focus on it.”

    If story’s a strong point then they shouldn’t have cast such ridiculously awful voice actors to play the roles; Sega can’t have it both ways. If a story-driven game is to do well in the West they can’t cut corners like that.

    I agree that Simon Jeffrey certainly could have done better but won’t deny that the Marvel license was a huge score for Sega. It’s a shame that better quality control wasn’t put into place, but that is a problem that has continued under Hayes, despite Shigs’ praise for the Captain America game, by most accounts I read, it’s not good.

    Those 2 Marvel games may have missed their targets but they still outsold what Binary Domain will, which was my point.

    “You are changing your point. Again. You argued that they should be previewing Binary Domain and give the press copies of demos and what not when this is not standard practise. I never mentioned anything else, I just pointed you out for an incorrect statement.”

    …but it IS standard practice. That’s how gaming websites conduct Previews of their games.

    “SEGA had AP’s sales at 700,000 – 750,000, over 3 platforms (And we are being very gracious on PC sales) in two regions gives us a total of 116,666 in America and Europe. You are debating that Binary Domain cannot do good numbers because it is underhyped, I have pointed out games with lesser hype still post impressive numbers and in contrast with Alpha Protocol, Binary Domain is seemingly Zelda in comparison.”

    Binary Domain is an action game VS an Espionage RPG so yeah, it IS an easier sell, but I still don’t feel that outselling Alpha Protocol will automatically make the game a smash hit. It needs to go a long way from AP to reach that status.

    “I can say the same thing. I know gamers, I know a lot of them, after football, the largest group of hobbiests I know are gamers and from what I can see, in general, they are interested in Binary Domain, enough so to seem like 1 million is possible.”

    1 million, over a lengthy period of time, IS possible, I suppose, if of course the game’s any good. I don’t think it’s particularly likely but I won’t say that it’s not possible for it to reach that mark. My concern is that big releases such as this one (from top-notch studios, from world famous video game creators) need to be doing better that in today’s gaming market to really help their companies to profit.

  26. Aki-at says:

    “I stood corrected that 4 or so trailers DO exist for the Western market, however, I continue to maintain that not enough is done to raise awareness about this game to the gaming public. Yes, there are 4 Western trailers, but none are particularly great (imo) none have received particularly good media presense, and none are going to inspire people (Besides people like us, who will already be buying the game regardless) to pick it up”

    That is your opinion in regards to the trailer. I was not interested, like most on the SEGAbits forum, in this game at all. However the second trailer they released was fantastic and grabbed my attention, as did others, the first and second proper trailers are great and I have seen that from the responses people give to them.

    “Binary Domain’s at 357k or so on Gametrailers; it’s not awful for a new IP from Japan but for the tentpole release that it *should be* it needs to be better. Sega needs to create IP that do well in the West if they are going to continue to do well in this business. This game seems tailor-made for Western audiences (at least in appearance) and yet Sega’s still treating it like a niche title”

    The game is made for a global audience, it is meant to be successful in every region.

    Binary Domain, as I have said, has a similar level of views at Gametrailers as both Bayonetta and Ninja Gaiden II has, to judge it like that then, should indicate that it will do over a million. And treating it like a niche title? 5 months from launch, no they are not. Anarchy Reigns is a title that is being treated like a niche title.

    “The first trailer was all storyline, then the other one was mostly storyline”

    The first one was not storyline, it was a concept teaser trailer as I said, that cutscene does not appear in the game itself. The only one that was mostly story trailer was the story trailer itself which was made for Japan. Second and third trailer had even split between gameplay and cutscenes and the other two trailers are all gameplay.

    “If story’s a strong point then they shouldn’t have cast such ridiculously awful voice actors to play the roles; Sega can’t have it both ways. If a story-driven game is to do well in the West they can’t cut corners like that”

    The voice acting is not “ridiculously awful voice actors” the voice acting is fine, outside of the first original trailer, every trailer from that point to the ingame voice acting is good to service a story.

    “I agree that Simon Jeffrey certainly could have done better but won’t deny that the Marvel license was a huge score for Sega. It’s a shame that better quality control wasn’t put into place, but that is a problem that has continued under Hayes, despite Shigs’ praise for the Captain America game, by most accounts I read, it’s not good”

    Huge score that with the exception of two games, did very little for SEGA and are blamed for the sluggish sales in the North American market. Quality control is hard for the type of license Jeffrey obtained, games cannot be made with a decent development time. Furthermore, what he did with Secret Level shows that development time is not the only issue, he did not deliever on what SEGA expected him to.

    But just those two games does not justify the amount of failures that SEGA America produced. The license itself would probably have cost them an arm and a leg so to have only two successful games is terrible. Jeffrey has left SEGA of America in shambles with no notable improvements. This is why he was fired. That was what SEGA Sammy’s upper management did to rectify the situation.

    As for Hayes, to his credit he has a much more successful CV than Jeffrey.

    “Those 2 Marvel games may have missed their targets but they still outsold what Binary Domain will, which was my point”

    Thor did only 400,000, so no, that is very unlikely Binary Domain will sell less then it. We will find out about Captain America soon enough.

    “…but it IS standard practice. That’s how gaming websites conduct Previews of their games”

    You said it was standard practice for games five months from release. It is not, previews prior to that point are played at events, journalists only get preview copies a month or two away from release.

    “Binary Domain is an action game VS an Espionage RPG so yeah, it IS an easier sell, but I still don’t feel that outselling Alpha Protocol will automatically make the game a smash hit. It needs to go a long way from AP to reach that status”

    That was not my point. My point was Alpha Protocol with even less hyped and still managed to sell such an amount. So to say Binary Domain will find it hard to reach such a milestone when lesser titles come close, especially when said title was not appealing in Japan, shows to me it is entirely possible. Especially when Binary Domain will get an even bigger push.

    “1 million, over a lengthy period of time, IS possible, I suppose, if of course the game’s any good. I don’t think it’s particularly likely but I won’t say that it’s not possible for it to reach that mark. My concern is that big releases such as this one (from top-notch studios, from world famous video game creators) need to be doing better that in today’s gaming market to really help their companies to profit.”

    How do you even know what the budget is? Were are you getting these figures? Outside of SEGA saying that they would consider 1 million + successful, how can you make such a guess? Not every game costs $40 million to develop, Sonic Unleashed, which had 3 years development time, over 100 staff members working on it and a new engine to develop was nothing more than $15 million for SEGA. Games like Gears 1 and 2 and Uncharted also cost less than $20 million to make. So until you know otherwise, you cannot make such claims.

  27. -nSega54- says:

    “Anarchy Reigns is a title that is being treated like a niche title.”

    I dunno man, I feel like we’ve been getting more trailers for Anarchy Reigns, to be honest.

    “The voice acting is not “ridiculously awful voice actors” the voice acting is fine, outside of the first original trailer, every trailer from that point to the ingame voice acting is good to service a story.”

    Okay, “serviceable” is still not great, especially if they’re going after the CoD/Gears demographic. People who play these types of games are used to a certain level of quality acting. Vanquish didn’t have it, but then again, Vanquish didn’t place a gigantic emphasis on story, as BD supposedly does.

    “Thor did only 400,000, so no, that is very unlikely Binary Domain will sell less then it. We will find out about Captain America soon enough.”

    Source?

    “You said it was standard practice for games five months from release. It is not, previews prior to that point are played at events, journalists only get preview copies a month or two away from release.”

    Major releases get preview builds throughout the game’s development. It’s standard practice for major releases. Sega is not treating Binary Domain like a major release, which is my point. I feel they need to be doing more to promote the title.

    “That was not my point. My point was Alpha Protocol with even less hyped and still managed to sell such an amount. So to say Binary Domain will find it hard to reach such a milestone when lesser titles come close, especially when said title was not appealing in Japan, shows to me it is entirely possible. Especially when Binary Domain will get an even bigger push.”

    See, I think we just have different view on tings. I don’t think BD is getting more hype than Alpha Protocol. It doesn’t feel like it to me, but who knows.

    “How do you even know what the budget is? Were are you getting these figures? Outside of SEGA saying that they would consider 1 million + successful, how can you make such a guess? Not every game costs $40 million to develop, Sonic Unleashed, which had 3 years development time, over 100 staff members working on it and a new engine to develop was nothing more than $15 million for SEGA. Games like Gears 1 and 2 and Uncharted also cost less than $20 million to make. So until you know otherwise, you cannot make such claims.”

    This is a game supposedly running on a new engine, so that likely makes it more expensive than your average Yakuza title. Yakuza titles break even with around 500k sold. Binary Domain, if it has a new engine, is more expensive, not to mention its English dubbing.

  28. Aki-at says:

    “I dunno man, I feel like we’ve been getting more trailers for Anarchy Reigns, to be honest”

    They have been giving short 30 – 45 second trailers. Compare the duration of all trailers and Binary Domain easily comes on top.

    “Okay, “serviceable” is still not great, especially if they’re going after the CoD/Gears demographic. People who play these types of games are used to a certain level of quality acting. Vanquish didn’t have it, but then again, Vanquish didn’t place a gigantic emphasis on story, as BD supposedly does”

    Gears of War and Binary Domain has the same standard in voice acting. Call of Duty is not that much more superior either. The voice acting in Binary Domain is already better then that in other titles such as Final Fantasy. None of the voice actors in any of those games are going to get awards for their performances, but for you to claim that Binary Domain is awful is strange. It falls into the good range.

    “Source?”

    SEGA Sammy’s Q1 report.

    “Major releases get preview builds throughout the game’s development. It’s standard practice for major releases. Sega is not treating Binary Domain like a major release, which is my point. I feel they need to be doing more to promote the title”

    Software only get preview builds once the game is near completion, not five months prior to the release of the title. Where are you getting this information from? It is not normal for preview builds to be developed so far from the launch of the game. Time and effort goes into making demos for public events themselves, a lot of time and effort that goes away from making the game and was one of the reasons E3 is mistakenly downgraded, preview builds are only given to publications towards the end of their development.

    SEGA are treating Binary Domain as a major release though. I suppose you are about to claim how Sonic Generation is not a major title from them, despite the game only getting its preview build out 2 weeks ago?

    “See, I think we just have different view on tings. I don’t think BD is getting more hype than Alpha Protocol. It doesn’t feel like it to me, but who knows”

    Alpha Protocol had next to no hype when it was released, how can you complain about Binary Domain but feel AP got much more hype? It had very little in the online gaming community.

    “This is a game supposedly running on a new engine, so that likely makes it more expensive than your average Yakuza title”

    So was Sonic Unleashed and the cost of development for that game is around the $15 million mark.

    “Yakuza titles break even with around 500k sold”

    This is wrong, Yakuza 3 broke even at 500,000 units sold, Yakuza 4, Black Panther and Of the End needed to sell less to end up in profit.

    “Binary Domain, if it has a new engine, is more expensive, not to mention its English dubbing”

    The cost of dubbing a game depends if they are using high quality voice actors. Since none of them are established voice actors, I very much doubt that is going to incur a massive amount of costs.

    So I ask again, do you know SEGA’s budget for the game? Without knowing it, you cannot confirm how profitable it will be at 1 million units, especially when titles like Gears 1, 2, Uncharted 1, 2 etc have been said to be $20 million or lower.

  29. -nSega54- says:

    “They have been giving short 30 – 45 second trailers. Compare the duration of all trailers and Binary Domain easily comes on top.”

    At least it’s getting the game’s name out there.

    “Gears of War and Binary Domain has the same standard in voice acting. Call of Duty is not that much more superior either. The voice acting in Binary Domain is already better then that in other titles such as Final Fantasy. None of the voice actors in any of those games are going to get awards for their performances, but for you to claim that Binary Domain is awful is strange. It falls into the good range.”

    People who play Japanese RPG games like Final Fantasy are much more tolerant of imperfect voice acting than the crowd who plays shooters are.

    “Software only get preview builds once the game is near completion, not five months prior to the release of the title. Where are you getting this information from? It is not normal for preview builds to be developed so far from the launch of the game. Time and effort goes into making demos for public events themselves, a lot of time and effort that goes away from making the game and was one of the reasons E3 is mistakenly downgraded, preview builds are only given to publications towards the end of their development.”

    Preview builds maybe but they still provide these publications with the opportunities to play their games. More than BD has thusfar received.

    “SEGA are treating Binary Domain as a major release though. I suppose you are about to claim how Sonic Generation is not a major title from them, despite the game only getting its preview build out 2 weeks ago?”

    Sonic Generations has been demoed for quite some time. Hell, I played a version of it back in June. 5 months away. Again, I’m not talking about entire preview builds but just allowing the press to play and write about the game. The amount of coverage Binary Domain received is low, imo.

    “So I ask again, do you know SEGA’s budget for the game? Without knowing it, you cannot confirm how profitable it will be at 1 million units, especially when titles like Gears 1, 2, Uncharted 1, 2 etc have been said to be $20 million or lower.”

    I don’t know Sega’s budget for the game. But if even if it doesn’t need to hit 1 million to profit, if it’s to positively affect their financials in a big way, it will need to sell more than 1 million. Vanquish’s 800,000 was not enough to drive Sega’s profits, an additional 200k wouldn’t make all that much of a difference, and I doubt this game’s cheaper than Vanquish.

  30. Aki-at says:

    “At least it’s getting the game’s name out there”

    And SEGA has got Binary Domain out there, more so then they are willing to for Anarchy Reign, justifiable or not how much they have tried on that game.

    “People who play Japanese RPG games like Final Fantasy are much more tolerant of imperfect voice acting than the crowd who plays shooters are”

    I would have to disagree with this. If the dialogue is terrible, not even fans of the genre would excuse. In any case, the quality of voice acting between Binary Domain and other shooters is not much different, some cases on par, other cases even better.

    “Preview builds maybe but they still provide these publications with the opportunities to play their games. More than BD has thusfar received”

    Preview builds is not a maybe, it is a certainty. Binary Domain has been previewed at Gamescom, Eurogamer, E3, PAX, TGS etc and SEGA will continue to have it at places such as Comic Con and private presentations.

    To expect SEGA (And any other publisher) time to consistently make demos for publications is not standard practise, it takes away a month or two of development time, the reason E3 was downgraded originally was because publisher/developers disliked the resources that are taken out of making a demo. That was just a demo too, not a preview build of the game. As I say, what you are asking for is not normal practise in the industry.

    “Sonic Generations has been demoed for quite some time. Hell, I played a version of it back in June. 5 months away. Again, I’m not talking about entire preview builds but just allowing the press to play and write about the game. The amount of coverage Binary Domain received is low, imo”

    And you also played a version of Binary Domain five months ago, so what is the point? Since E3, where ever Sonic Generations has been previewed, Binary Domain has been present. So the press has been allowed to play Binary Domain plenty of times at this point and time.

    “I don’t know Sega’s budget for the game. But if even if it doesn’t need to hit 1 million to profit, if it’s to positively affect their financials in a big way, it will need to sell more than 1 million. Vanquish’s 800,000 was not enough to drive Sega’s profits, an additional 200k wouldn’t make all that much of a difference, and I doubt this game’s cheaper than Vanquish”

    Drive profits or missed targets? SEGA never confirmed if they lost money on Vanquish or not. They only stated it missed their targets, a title could miss a publishers target and still remain profitable. Such as titles like Valkyria Chronicles did.

    As for 200,000 would not make a difference, that is an additional $6 million for the publisher if we are being generous at $30 per unit sold.

    If we want to get very technical about this and work it out. Current regular retail price for Binary Domain in Japan is 7,066 yen which translates to $91.00. Let us say SEGA makes half of that, $45.00 and the rest is for the retailer and other expenses.

    333,333 units at $45 = $14,999,985

    Now let us presume SEGA makes half of the $59.99 from US retailers, that will leave us with $29.995, let us round it down to be fair to the nearest dollar, at $29

    333,333 units at $29.00 = $9,666,657

    Binary Domain is priced at £39.99 in the UK or just above $60 whilst it is priced 69.99 Euros across Europe which translates to $96.00. Let us say that the UK will contribute 222,222 units for the title, that is very unlikely I would presume but we will go for the worst case scenario and imagine only 111,111 are bought outside of the UK, so.

    222,222 units at $30.00 = $6,666,660

    111,111 units at $48.00 = $5,333,328

    Now let us all add up the total monies made for SEGA, which comes to a grand total of…

    $14,999,985 + $9,666,657 + $6,666,660 + $5,333,328 = $36,666,630

    Take away 200,000 would cut at least $6 million. Suddenly, presuming the budget is $20 million and it is just that a presumption and could be wrong both ways, SEGA’s return of investment would be just 50%, instead of 80% that they would thanks to that additional $6 million.

    It’s a massive difference 200,000 units and as I said before, it is a new IP and to realistically expect every game to follow Gears or Halo sales number is unreasonable and unsustainable.

  31. -nSega54- says:

    “I would have to disagree with this. If the dialogue is terrible, not even fans of the genre would excuse. In any case, the quality of voice acting between Binary Domain and other shooters is not much different, some cases on par, other cases even better.”

    Everyone in that story trailer sounded like they came out of an arcade cabinet circa 1999. But maybe it’s just me.

    “Preview builds is not a maybe, it is a certainty. Binary Domain has been previewed at Gamescom, Eurogamer, E3, PAX, TGS etc and SEGA will continue to have it at places such as Comic Con and private presentations.”

    Private presentations are what they need to do more of. A game like Binary Domain can’t be experienced in full in demo form; I know because when I played it at E3 I stood there for like 10 minutes before I even got to move my character, what with all the load times and the long text box conversations. Not the best environment to get impressions of a game, especially with people breathing down your neck to play.

    “Drive profits or missed targets? SEGA never confirmed if they lost money on Vanquish or not. They only stated it missed their targets, a title could miss a publishers target and still remain profitable. Such as titles like Valkyria Chronicles did.”

    Like I keep telling you dude, even if a product is “slightly” profitable, a company can’t live off that. If you invest (just putting out a random number here) $20 million and years of development time on a game, (remember, that doesn’t even include marketing) and it only makes them back $24 million, that’s not a worthwhile return for the time and effort spent. Games need to make companies significantly more than “a little” profits to be true assets to companies, and that’s why they have “sales targets” that they want met. Games that don’t meet these targets are not considered successful whether they profited or not.

    The math equations; dude there are so many different factors that go into the cost of selling, publishing, marketing, and releasing games (including retailer prices, what Sega makes per game sold, etc) that it’s just impossible for either of us to sit here and guess how much money Sega would have made if Vanquish had sold just a little bit more.

  32. Aki-at says:

    “Everyone in that story trailer sounded like they came out of an arcade cabinet circa 1999. But maybe it’s just me”

    Sounds nothing like that. Sounds typical voice acting, the trailer that focuses solely on storyline had very good voice acting.

    “Private presentations are what they need to do more of. A game like Binary Domain can’t be experienced in full in demo form; I know because when I played it at E3 I stood there for like 10 minutes before I even got to move my character, what with all the load times and the long text box conversations. Not the best environment to get impressions of a game, especially with people breathing down your neck to play”

    You are the only person to even mention that, with the exception of IGN, everyone else came away with relatively good to excellent first impressions. No one commented on loading screens and the text box conversations? There was no text box conversations in the demo at all, it was all voiced.

    And the media did get to spend time with the game behind closed door presentations, Nagoshi was at E3 for a day before it was open for the public, furthermore he and the team itself did more interviews and presentations during TGS.

    “Like I keep telling you dude, even if a product is “slightly” profitable, a company can’t live off that. If you invest (just putting out a random number here) $20 million and years of development time on a game, (remember, that doesn’t even include marketing) and it only makes them back $24 million, that’s not a worthwhile return for the time and effort spent. Games need to make companies significantly more than “a little” profits to be true assets to companies, and that’s why they have “sales targets” that they want met. Games that don’t meet these targets are not considered successful whether they profited or not”

    You missed my point.

    First of all, I said Vanquish missed its target and in this debate I have said that it will not get a sequel due to that. However, I mentioned that it could still have made money for SEGA, not the money they wanted, but money made regardless.

    Second, I never claimed SEGA could live off of that, my point however was to consider an additional 200,000 units of sales not making such a difference is wrong. As I proved with my following example, which brings me to…

    “The math equations; dude there are so many different factors that go into the cost of selling, publishing, marketing, and releasing games (including retailer prices, what Sega makes per game sold, etc) that it’s just impossible for either of us to sit here and guess how much money Sega would have made if Vanquish had sold just a little bit more”

    How is it impossible for me to make such a guess? It has been known that retailers usually pay closer to 70% of the price of a game then they sell it for. Of course they probably could get even more off depending on how many units ordered but at worst case the publisher makes 50% of the sales of a game.

    But my point was that a further $6 million is not a small amount. 200,000 units is not a small amount.

  33. -nSega54- says:

    “You are the only person to even mention that, with the exception of IGN, everyone else came away with relatively good to excellent first impressions. No one commented on loading screens and the text box conversations? There was no text box conversations in the demo at all, it was all voiced.

    And the media did get to spend time with the game behind closed door presentations, Nagoshi was at E3 for a day before it was open for the public, furthermore he and the team itself did more interviews and presentations during TGS.”

    Voice acted yes but not cutscene format. Characters literally standing around talking. Not in cutscene, but in-game. With you unable to move. It’s the same thing as text boxes but with voice over narration. And there was a very long loading screen from the character selection screen to the gameplay.

    If the press has had so many chances to report on the game there would be more than 6 articles for it on IGN.

    6 million is not a huge amount from the perspective of yearly financials of a major corporation. And frankly dude your math is a bit of a guessing game.

    I didn’t say (I don’t think) that Vanquish lost Sega money, but that the game was financially unsuccessful. A game can still profit and be financially unsuccessful.

  34. Aki-at says:

    “Voice acted yes but not cutscene format. Characters literally standing around talking. Not in cutscene, but in-game. With you unable to move. It’s the same thing as text boxes but with voice over narration. And there was a very long loading screen from the character selection screen to the gameplay”

    It is not. And even if it was, it lasts around 20 seconds, not enough to bug many previewers out as evidenced by the fact no one else had even mentioned this in their previews.

    And I fail to see why such a long loading time, combined with that, requires a presentation? I’d imagine most publications would rather have access to the game. Which they did so.

    “If the press has had so many chances to report on the game there would be more than 6 articles for it on IGN”

    I fail to see how this justifies such claims? Sonic Generations only has 14 articles on IGN, this must mean SEGA has not showcased Sonic Generations, correct?

    “6 million is not a huge amount from the perspective of yearly financials of a major corporation”

    It is an additional $6 million, not just $6 million profit. If a product costs $20 million to make and returns $36 million, instead of $30 million, that is a far better return of investments. For a video games company, that is a good return.

    “And frankly dude your math is a bit of a guessing game”

    How is it a guessing game? Publishers usually make upto 50% profit on each unit sold. If retailers were making close to 50% on each product, why are they pushing the sales of used games so much? The fact is publishers sell products at around 70% of the price of a game to retailers/wholesellers and about 50% of that is consider profits per product.

    “I didn’t say (I don’t think) that Vanquish lost Sega money, but that the game was financially unsuccessful. A game can still profit and be financially unsuccessful”

    I never claimed it a financial success in any way.

  35. -nSega54- says:

    “And I fail to see why such a long loading time, combined with that, requires a presentation? I’d imagine most publications would rather have access to the game. Which they did so.”

    And apparently didn’t feel the need to report on. Lol dude come on 6 articles? For a game that’s from a major publisher/studio and is coming out in 3 months?

    “I fail to see how this justifies such claims? Sonic Generations only has 14 articles on IGN, this must mean SEGA has not showcased Sonic Generations, correct?”

    14…………….6…………

    That’s over twice as many. Though I’ve got to say, maybe it’s a good thing Sega’s keeping the game hidden given how negative the reaction always seems to their videos. The latest multiplayer trailer; is the game really this un-interesting? If not, why does Sega continue to be doing their best to make the game look as un-interesting as possible? Again, in a game like this, people expect quality multiplayer. Why bother including multiplayer at all if it won’t be good?

    “It is an additional $6 million, not just $6 million profit. If a product costs $20 million to make and returns $36 million, instead of $30 million, that is a far better return of investments. For a video games company, that is a good return.”

    Well certainly it’s better than nothing but it’s not going to be a game-changer.

    “I never claimed it a financial success in any way.”

    And yet you think this will be. I don’t know that it will.

  36. Aki-at says:

    “And apparently didn’t feel the need to report on. Lol dude come on 6 articles? For a game that’s from a major publisher/studio and is coming out in 3 months?”

    4 months away from release, closer to 5 months.

    If you check out other outlets, as our member Pao has posted on the forums, you will see quite a few publications have actually posted responses to the game.

    “14…………….6…………

    That’s over twice as many”

    Sonic Generation comes out in two weeks. Binary Domain comes out in just under 5 months. It having over twice as many articles is not an indication of your theory. Furthermore, Sonic is an established brand with a promising new game coming out set to revitilise the series. Binary Domain is a new IP.

    It having only 14 articles, at least in your opinion, prior to release is not very good. At least following your theory.

    Though I’ve got to say, maybe it’s a good thing Sega’s keeping the game hidden given how negative the reaction always seems to their videos. The latest multiplayer trailer; is the game really this un-interesting? If not, why does Sega continue to be doing their best to make the game look as un-interesting as possible? Again, in a game like this, people expect quality multiplayer. Why bother including multiplayer at all if it won’t be good?

    “Though I’ve got to say, maybe it’s a good thing Sega’s keeping the game hidden given how negative the reaction always seems to their videos. The latest multiplayer trailer; is the game really this un-interesting? If not, why does Sega continue to be doing their best to make the game look as un-interesting as possible? Again, in a game like this, people expect quality multiplayer. Why bother including multiplayer at all if it won’t be good?”

    Most videos have positive reactions, only the teaser and now the multiplayer one has bad reactions.

    PEople do not expect quality multiplayer, people expect multiplayer. There were a large amount of people who decided not to get Vanquish because of the lack of multiplayer. No matter how average the multiplayer is, it is a plus point and add to sales.

    “Well certainly it’s better than nothing but it’s not going to be a game-changer”

    It is a major change. $6 million is enough to fund a handheld title, and enough to boost return of investment by a further 30% so yes, it would change SEGA’s outlook on Vanquish and also their hold in the video games market, in which they remain 6th.

    “And yet you think this will be. I don’t know that it will”

    Binary Domain?

    Stronger push from SEGA then Vanquish, comes with a multiplayer mode, one of the popular titles at TGS, yes, it already has much more going for it then Vanquish did.

  37. -nSega54- says:

    Disagree about a stronger push, and even if you argue that Binary Domain has a stronger push, I don’t think Binary Domain looks as interesting or distinctive as Vanquish did, (sorry man, lol) and I think that will show with the sales. But that’s just my thoughts.

    As far as people expecting multiplayer…eh. People expect good multiplayer. See reactions to Mass Effect 3 “having multiplayer.” Most response has been negative before people even saw it. There’s actually a bit of backlash going around now against devs including multiplayer for the sake of it.

    Anyway, 14, 6, whatever, lol, Sonic is an established IP. Binary Domain is a new entity and it needs to be pushed harder by Sega than it is to make a splash. IMO.

  38. Aki-at says:

    “Disagree about a stronger push”

    How? Vanquish launched with 9 trailers, Binary Domain has 9 already with another few months to go. It held its own conference at TGS, its clear to see, it is getting a bigger push.

    “I don’t think Binary Domain looks as interesting or distinctive as Vanquish did, (sorry man, lol) and I think that will show with the sales. But that’s just my thoughts”

    Outside of Sam, there is nothing distinctive about Vanquish. Compared to these with what basically amounts to Terminators, giant spider robots, the various robots. As for gameplay, its true that Vanquish has that, but it did not help the game in its native Japan, where Binary Domain has already become well known in and it is perhaps something that hate the game.

    “As far as people expecting multiplayer…eh. People expect good multiplayer”

    People expect it fullstop. Vanquish lost a lot of sales because there was no multiplayer, if Binary Domain has multiplayer, it will be a plus anyway you spin it.

    “See reactions to Mass Effect 3 “having multiplayer.” Most response has been negative before people even saw it. There’s actually a bit of backlash going around now against devs including multiplayer for the sake of it”

    Hardcore gamers that make very little impact on the market. Most people would enjoy multiplayer in any game. If you see the amount of interest on games like MadWorld or Valkyria Chronicles, you wouuld expect them to be big sellers, they are not. Vocal minority it is.

    “Anyway, 14, 6, whatever, lol, Sonic is an established IP. Binary Domain is a new entity and it needs to be pushed harder by Sega than it is to make a splash. IMO”

    SEGA pushing hard is not the point I was making.

    Sonic will get more article than Binary Domain regardless, because he is Sonic the Hedgehog and was once the biggest series in video games. The fact is and my original point, Sonic Generations has been pushed hard by SEGA yet only has 14 articles but it has been shown extensively. Really it proves nothing.

  39. -nSega54- says:

    “How? Vanquish launched with 9 trailers, Binary Domain has 9 already with another few months to go. It held its own conference at TGS, its clear to see, it is getting a bigger push.”

    But Platinum Games had Mikami and Inaba and all those people willing to go out and do press for it. Sega sort of had their own promotion and Platinum had their own and they kinda worked together. Not saying Vanquish was well-promoted but I feel awareness was higher. Maybe because of the higher profile developers.

    “Outside of Sam, there is nothing distinctive about Vanquish. Compared to these with what basically amounts to Terminators, giant spider robots, the various robots. As for gameplay, its true that Vanquish has that, but it did not help the game in its native Japan, where Binary Domain has already become well known in and it is perhaps something that hate the game.”

    The “bullet time low HP” has already been used in games since, including Mass Effect 2. Then there was the slide.

    “Hardcore gamers that make very little impact on the market.”

    But that’s who a game like this will be targeting. Binary Domain isn’t going to be targeting casual players and if it is, then Sega’s REALLY fucked because they haven’t even been trying.

    Regarding Sonic, eh. Sonic’s different. Its target audience doesn’t even usually read articles.

  40. Aki-at says:

    Sorry for the late response, I have been busy;

    “But Platinum Games had Mikami and Inaba and all those people willing to go out and do press for it. Sega sort of had their own promotion and Platinum had their own and they kinda worked together. Not saying Vanquish was well-promoted but I feel awareness was higher. Maybe because of the higher profile developers”

    But Nagoshi and Sato both have been doing press interviews too? Regardless, the most effective form of marketing pre-release is usually trailers and SEGA has released more of those for Binary Domain.

    “The “bullet time low HP” has already been used in games since, including Mass Effect 2. Then there was the slide”

    I never mentioned it was the first, but it makes Vanquish stand out compared to Binary Domain. Again I was unsure what you were exactly making the point on? Aesthetics or gameplay?

    “But that’s who a game like this will be targeting. Binary Domain isn’t going to be targeting casual players and if it is, then Sega’s REALLY fucked because they haven’t even been trying”

    My point was hardcore gamers are usually on forums posting a lot about x particular game and how great it’ll be, but they are a vocal minority. The majority of gamers do not all go on forums and post consistently about everything, so the reactions you saw for Mass Effect 3 are probably just a vocal group. Unless it really is bad, then it will spill onto casual players.

    “Regarding Sonic, eh. Sonic’s different. Its target audience doesn’t even usually read articles”

    That was not my, the point was Sonic does not have a lot of articles on IGN despite SEGA showing it many times, having press and fan events etc the idea how many articles IGN has posted has very little relavence in how often the game has been shown.

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